My cats a nightmare

[Sue P (Paddysmum)]

      so pleased the various advice your Purrs Mates offered has helped.     

[Gill (sneakiefeline)]

I am also confident that Timothy continues his reign of terror for all dog owners on the allotment, as I bumped into a lady with a Bichon and the first thing she asked whilst picking her dog up was "Is the cat with you?"

THAT MADE ME LAUGH....IS THE CAT  WITH YOU 

I WASNT AROUND WHEN YOU POSTED BUT PLEASED MY FRIENDS HELPED.

[rainbowandyroo]

Thanks to all you lovely people that read and replied to my post. I started shutting Timothy in when I could whilst walking the dogs and that seems to have worked well, to date there have been no more aggressive incidents but what I have noticed is when we walk along the fence near the playing field every now and again my dog will start to pull to get home if Timothy is with us,  I am assuming as I cannot see that there is a dog on the field and that Bella and Timothy both know this. I am also confident that Timothy continues his reign of terror for all dog owners on the allotment, as I bumped into a lady with a Bichon and the first thing she asked whilst picking her dog up was "Is the cat with you?"

[Judecat (Paula)]

Just a thought but would he accept being on a harness, then that way you could pull him away if he started to attack the dog, even as a short term measure???????

[Sassybot]

What a little terror : )

How do you behave when he goes for the dogs? Our behaviour can have an effect on theirs so it's possible that at first he was just misdirecting the stress of the initial event, but now he feels you getting tense and acts out. I had a dog that did a similar thing when we walked near where our other dog was attacked. The moment I stopped being stressed about it he stopped the aggression.

[rainbowandyroo]

He is a character a snuggle baby in the house. The behaviour only occurs whilst walking and I can keep him in when he's home but sometimes he just appears half way through the walk. He appeared today and was walking quite happily when out of the blue he just dived on the poor dog then takes a come and have a go stance in front of us, I had to send my daughter ahead to keep Timothy walking and not focus on the dogs. He seems to focus on the bigger dog ( the one who was bitten). I don't know what I would have been able to do today if I was on my own. The poor dog just kept trying to pull me home as fast as possible. We've been away for a week and I was hoping he might have let it go but apparently not.

[Sue P (Paddysmum)]

Hi Rainbowandyroo.

Timothy sounds like a proper little character - just right for a cat of his stature.   

Unfortunately, the incident with the dog fight has clearly unsettled him, and what he's now doing is redirecting the fear and aggression he experienced from the incident at your own dogs, his companions.

Does the aggression only take place when he is out on your walks with the dogs, or does it happen in the house as well? 

This kind of thing can often happen between cats too, who have otherwise lived peaceably and happily side by side until something happens which shakes their confidence, then one cat can get bullied something rotten by it's housemate.

Usually the way to address it is to separate the two animals concerned, and keep them isolated for a while, gradually reintroducing with techniques such as site swapping (ie rubbing each pet with a cloth or glove or sock, and then swapping the scents over, letting each cat have the other cat's cloth to smell.) and sight blocking (making sure the animals can't see each other.

If this behaviour only happens when you're out with the dogs, then you may have to consider curtailing Timothy's allotment excursions for the foreseeable future.

[rainbowandyroo]

Hi new here I am asking for advice about Timothys behaviour. Timothy is 5 years old and lives with 2dogs he has been raised with .We have allotments behind us so he is a very active outdoors cat. We often take the dogs for a walk around these allotments and Timothy will often come with us or join us one walk. He's a star with alot of the allotmenteers (rat catcher extrordinaire). He's a loving cat but has been known to take on a number of the allotment owners dogs and from what we can tell winning each time. Now to get to the problem about 3 weeks ago another dog that was loose on the allotment decided to go for my dogs resulting in one being bitten on the paw at the height of this forray Timothy comes diving in attacking the other dog full on landing on its face and head, after this Timothy was quite fired up and had a go at my two dogs and since then intermittently he is now attacking them on walks to the point my dogs are afraid of him. My question is is there anything we can do to stop this behaviour as I am seriously comcerned he will harm one of the dogs or the dogs will retaliate once we are home and hurt him. Please please please can anyone give my any practical advice. Many Thanks